


Angel

by RySenkari



Category: Los Casagrandes (Cartoon), The Loud House (Cartoon)
Genre: COVID-19, Coronavirus, Essential Workers, First Responders - Freeform, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Nurse - Freeform, Pandemic - Freeform, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-24
Updated: 2020-05-24
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:01:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24356254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RySenkari/pseuds/RySenkari
Summary: Ronnie Anne struggles with the absence of her mother, who has been working long hours of overtime at the hospital due to the pandemic. When Maria comes home late one night, Ronnie Anne finally gets a chance to talk to her, and learns about the nightmare her mother continues to face... and just how strong she really is.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 2





	Angel

Ronnie Anne couldn't sleep. It wasn't as if she needed to get to sleep at any specific time, school had been closed now for two whole months, and she didn't have anywhere to be, what with all the closings pretty much everywhere. She was worried... not so much for herself, but perhaps a bit for her grandparents, as old and vulnerable as they were.

And of course, she worried for her parents. Her father, the doctor. Her mother, the nurse. Both of them working incredible amounts of overtime at local hospitals, as the number of cases of this terrible disease piled up, as the two of them worked sometimes for 18 hours at a time or more... Ronnie Anne hadn't talked to her father, even over the internet, in two weeks, and she hadn't seen her mother in person in two days.

She couldn't sleep, and staying in bed didn't help. Everyone else was sleeping, so she didn't feel too guilty about getting out of bed and heading down to the kitchen for a snack to calm her nerves.

That's when she heard it. Someone was coming in... the familiar jangling of keys indicating that it was someone who belonged there.

_Mom?_

Ronnie Anne made a detour from the kitchen, looking for her mother... but she had already disappeared. She turned and walked down the hallway, and saw a light on and a door wide open.

“Mom...?”

All she could hear as she approached the door was quiet sobbing.

“Mom!”

She walked to the doorway, and there she saw her mother Maria.

Maria was sitting on the bed, still dressed in her scrubs from the hospital. Her head was in her hands, and she was sobbing. Ronnie Anne had never seen her mother cry after coming home from work before... indeed, her mother rarely cried at all.

“Mom, are you okay?”

Ronnie Anne started to enter the room, only for Maria to look up and quickly wave her off.

“Ronnie Anne, don't come in here, I still have my hospital clothes on!” shouted Maria, much more frightened than angry. Ronnie Anne reluctantly but quickly backed off, but remained in the doorway, staring wide eyed at her mother.

“Mom... you're crying...” said Ronnie Anne quietly. She desperately wanted to go to her mom and comfort her, but she knew that it was dangerous to do so after Maria had been at work. She reached out involuntarily, extending her arm, wanting to go to her, wanting to hold her and to be held... her legs shaking and her eyes starting to water. “What happened?”

“Nothing happened, Ronnie Anne, I'm just... overwhelmed,” Maria replied, sniffling. She let her tears fall freely, not wanting to reach up to wipe them away from her face.

“Because you're... overworked?” Ronnie Anne asked, knowing that her mother had just pulled another 18 hour shift.

“A little bit, but that's not the biggest problem,” said Maria softly, her head bowed. “You don't want to hear about this... it's not.... it's not like the other stories I've told you. It's not a cool injury or a weird patient, it's just... it's just this virus, it... it doesn't stop.”

Ronnie Anne could see the lines on her normally youthful mother's face, the deep sadness in her eyes... she could hear the exhaustion in her voice.

“But it said on the news the curve's flattening out, right? The number of cases are going down?”

“A little,” said Maria. “Not nearly enough. The hospital's overwhelmed, we've had to turn away almost everyone else. We're still not letting in any visitors. There are so many sick people... we have enough ventilators, but... once someone's on a ventilator, it's usually too late.”

Ronnie Anne started to say something, but there was nothing to say. Her sadness reflected her mother's, and when Maria saw that her daughter had nothing to say in response, she tried to muster a hint of a smile.

“Hey... it'll be okay, you don't have to worry about me, I'll be fine.”

“Mom, you're not okay, I can see it. I've never seen you this tired before. I've never seen you this sad anymore, not even during the divorce with dad! Tell me what's happening, I can take it! I'm a tough girl, you raised me that way, remember?”

Maria smiled again at her daughter's attempts to reach out to her. Ronnie Anne had always been such a kind and compassionate girl, even if there were times when she didn't show it... but she'd gotten so much happier since they'd moved to the city, and Maria hated to say anything that might sadden her.

“Ronnie Anne... people are dying, every day. Our hospital's one of the biggest in the city and nearly every bed is a COVID-19 patient. Everyone in the hospital is sick, sometimes desperately so. The ones who are still awake want to be with their family, but we can't let anyone in to see them. The ones who aren't... we're getting calls about them, constantly.”

“You can't let _any_ visitors in? Even for people that are dying?”

“No, sweetie, we can't... if we let someone in, they could get the virus, and if they left afterward, they could spread it.”

“That's not fair!” shouted Ronnie Anne, clenching her fists.

“I know, I know,” Maria replied, a tear sliding down her face. “We have children in the cancer ward whose parents can't visit. We try to be there for them but- oh, Ronnie Anne...”

Ronnie Anne's fists had unclenched, and her arms were now limp at her sides. Her mouth was slightly agape, and her eyes were quivering with tears.

“Mom.... how many people are dying? The governor said 5,000 in the state... how many in Great Lakes City?”

“Almost two thousand,” said Maria, bowing her head. “I.... I've personally seen dozens of patients die.”

“What....?” gasped Ronnie Anne, almost in shock.

“Usually... when someone's about to die... one of the nurses or doctors... volunteers to hold their hand and be with them,” said Maria, speaking through sobs now as tears started to fall rapidly down her face. “I....I've volunteered 46 times.”

“Oh... God...” Ronnie Anne whispered, looking at her mother in shock, disbelief, and despair. “Why...?”

“Someone has to,” Maria whispered back, looking into Ronnie Anne's eyes with an expression of hollowed out grief, as if staring into the abyss but finding a single solitary light in the form of her daughter to cling to. “I... I'd just think... what if it was mama or papa... or you or Bobby...”

“I didn't know.... I'm so sorry...” Ronnie Anne rasped, tears now coursing down her face as well. Maria could see her daughter crying and desperately wanted to hold her, to tell her everything was going to be okay, to tell her that she was okay, even if she wasn't. “I knew it was bad... but... oh mom, I don't want you to do that anymore...”

Ronnie Anne knew she was being selfish, and hated herself for it immediately, only adding to her grief. She couldn't hug her mom, and her mom couldn't hug her, so she held herself tightly as her legs trembled and threatened to give out from underneath her.

“This will be over someday,” said Maria, trying desperately to reassure her.

“When?”

“...I'm sorry, Ronnie Anne. I'm sorry for putting you and Bobby and everyone else through this.”

“Mom...”

Ronnie Anne saw the look of guilt in her mother's eyes and hated herself even more. She wanted to scream, she wanted to punch the wall, or punch herself... she wanted her mom back, she didn't want her to go away again... but at the same time, she felt an admiration for her mother like she'd never known. She loved her mom so, so much.... and now she felt a warmth and a pride that mixed with the sadness inside and made her let out another sob and hide her face away.

“You're the best person I know... you're so loving and kind and smart and amazing... and all the good things about me came from you.... you have no idea how proud of you I am... but I'm scared to lose you and I don't want you feeling sad again... but you're helping all those people....what am I supposed to think?!”

“Whatever you feel like, Ronnie Anne, there's nothing wrong with wanting me not to go back...do you know how many times every day I feel like giving up? How many times, when they ask who wants to volunteer to be with a dying patient, that I scream at myself in my head to say no? ...but then I think of you and Bobby... and I can't... I can't abandon those people. They need me.... and it feels so good to be needed.... I guess that's kind of a selfish thing to think, isn't it?”

“Mom, you don't have a single selfish bone in your body,” said Ronnie Anne. “And... I just want to hug you so much and never let go....!”

Maria sighed and smiled... hearing her daughter's kind words was just the pick me up she needed on another grueling day.

“Let me go put my clothes away and get washed up, then you can hug me as much as you want, okay?”

“Okay,” said Ronnie Anne, sniffling and wiping a tear away. Maria took a deep breath and bowed her head, trying to get more of the day's sadness out of her mind. “Do you need some time alone?”

“I'll have plenty of that in the shower,” said Maria, smiling as her messy black hair fell in front of her face. “If you still want to talk, I'll sit here as long as you need me to.”

“It's okay, I'll let you wash up,” Ronnie Anne replied, sniffling again and smiling as she backed away from the door to let her mother exit.

As Maria stood up and got ready to take a shower, she tried her best not to think about how sad Ronnie Anne had been when she'd heard about all the bad things that had been happening at the hospital. She thought for a moment that it had been a bad idea to tell her, but the two had promised to be honest with each other... completely honest, which meant that they shared everything, even the really unpleasant things.

_She'll be all right,_ thought Maria as she walked to the bathroom and put her hand on the doorknob.  _It's like she said, she's a tough girl... I raised her that way._

“Mom?” said Ronnie Anne, standing six feet away. Maria looked back at her to see her smiling warmly. “I love you so much.”

“I love you too, Ronnie Anne,” replied Maria, smiling back at her daughter. “I'll see you in a little while, okay?”

Ronnie Anne nodded, then walked back down the hallway to the living room. She curled up on the couch and let out a yawn, thinking about everything her mother had told her. She still felt sad... more sad than she'd felt in a long time... but she had to believe that everything would be all right, just like her mother had said.

_Mom... you're an angel. I'm so proud of you for helping all those people... but I'm scared for you too. I can be both, right? I just want this to be over... I just want things to go back to normal again._

Ronnie Anne wrapped her arms around her legs, curling up on the couch and letting the tears come, and silently begging her mother to finish her shower quickly.

_I need that hug so much right now._


End file.
